just tastes really funny now.
“It’s like, before it was just Coke. But now all I can taste is the aspar-tame. And not really the aspartame, but like, the chemicals that make up aspartame. I taste what aspartame is like on the inside. I still get the shakes, though. So I’m down to a can a day.”
Noah isn’t exactly cute. The basketball guys usually aren’t, not like the football guys. He’s extra-lanky and skinny, and the whole vampire thing pretty much comes free with black hair and pale skin. He used to have really nice green eyes.
“How did it happen to you?” I hated saying it like that. But it was the only think I could think of. How it happens to you. Like a car accident. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. If it’s, you know, private.”
Noah was counting the bits of gravel. He didn’t want me to know he was doing it, but he moved his lips when he counted. That’s why OCD is on the high-risk list. Because vampires compulsively count everything. I think it’s the other way, though. You don’t turn because you’re OCD. You’re OCD because you turned.
“Yeah, no, it’s not private. It’s just not that interesting. Remember when the HR list first came out and I was so freaked because I was conceived on a Saturday and I have that mole on my hip? I was so sure I’d get it before everyone else. But it didn’t happen like I thought, like when that third grader just flipped one day and the CDC guys figured out it was because her mom is a crazy cat lady and she doesn’t even have a path to cross without a black cat there to cross it for her. Ana Cruz. I thought it would be like that. Like Ana. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it would be. Just walking down the street, and bang. But it wasn’t. I woke up one night and this woman was looking in my window. She was older. Pretty, though. She looked… kind, I guess.”
“How old was she?”
“One of the oldest ones in California, it turned out, so about six? Her name was Maria. She used to be an anesthesiologist, down at the hospital.”
“Were you guys… together? Or something?”
“No, Scout, you just kind of get to talking eventually. Afterward, there’s not that much to do but wait, and she was nice. She stayed with me. Held my hand. She didn’t have to. Anyway, I opened the window, but I didn’t let her in. I’m not an idiot. I just sat there looking back at her. You know how they look after they’re past the first couple of years. All wolfy and hard and stuff. And finally she said: ‘why wait?’ And I thought, shit, she’s right. It’s gonna happen, sooner or later. I might as well get on with it. If I do it now, at least I can stop thinking about it. So I climbed out.” He laughed shortly, like a bark. “I didn’t invite her in. She invited me out. I guess that’s sort of funny. Anyway, you know how it works. I don’t want to get all porny on you. It was really gross at first. Blood just tastes like blood, you know? Like hot syrup. But then, it sort of changes, and it was like I could hear her singing, even though she was totally silent the whole time. Anyway. It hurts when you wake up the next night. Like when your arm falls asleep but all over. My mom was really mad.”
I picked at the peeling paint on the side of the swingset. “I think about it.”
“Oh! Do you want me to…?” God, Noah was always so fucking eager to please. He’s like a puppy.
It took me a long time to answer. I totally get him. Why wait. But finally, I just sighed. “I don’t think so. I have a bio test tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Noah lit a cigarette, just like Emmy. He looked like a total tool. Like he’s the vampire Marlboro Man or whatever.
“What does blood taste like now?” I asked. I can’t help it. I still want to know. I always want to know.
“Singing,” he mumbled around the cigarette, and puffed out the smoke without inhaling.
The other week, my Uncle Jack came to visit. He lives in Chicago and works for some big advertising company. He did that one billboard with the American Apparel kids all wrapped up in biohazard tape.